Drive up to the US 41 entrance at Pelican Marsh this month and you will still find construction fencing instead of a guardhouse. The Pelican Marsh Community Development District confirmed a new guard gate for the Tamiami Trail entrance, with work that began this spring, and by June a listing for a home inside the community was already telling buyers to use the Airport-Pulling and Vanderbilt Beach entrances instead, because the US 41 gate was mid-rebuild.
If you live here, that is not background noise. It is the thing that decides whether your Tuesday errand run takes ten minutes or twenty. But there is a second story running underneath the gate project, one that has nothing to do with cars at all, and it explains why the disruption at the front entrance matters less to some residents than others.
The Gate That's Down Right Now
Pelican Marsh has three vehicle entrances: the main one off US 41 near 99th Street, a secondary gate on Airport-Pulling Road, and a third off Vanderbilt Beach Road east of Goodlette-Frank. The district's own posting shows a rendering of the planned US 41 guardhouse and confirms the project got underway this spring. That US 41 entrance is the one most residents default to out of habit, since it is the community's original, best-known gate.
With that gate torn up, the other two are absorbing traffic they were not necessarily sized for. If you have noticed a longer wait at Airport-Pulling in the late afternoon, this is almost certainly why. The district has not published a completion date, so the practical guidance for now is simple: plan on Airport-Pulling or Vanderbilt Beach, and treat the US 41 side as closed until you see otherwise.
The One Neighborhood That Never Needed a Gate for Cars
Here is the detail that changes how you should think about this. Pelican Marsh is not one gate experience. It is 26 separate enclaves sharing a security perimeter, and only one of them, Egrets Walk, has its own private pedestrian gate straight into Mercato.
Egrets Walk is a cluster of 208 carriage homes built between 1995 and 2000 on the community's west side, and its residents have a walking and biking connection straight into Mercato, bypassing all three vehicle entrances entirely. That gate puts Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and Mercato's restaurant row within a walk or a short bike ride, no car and no guardhouse involved.
For the other 25 neighborhoods in Pelican Marsh, from Les Chateaux to the Estates at Bay Colony Golf Club, getting to Mercato has always meant driving out through one of the three vehicle gates. That is normally a minor distinction. Right now, with one of those three gates out of service, it is the difference between a resident who has not changed a single habit since spring and one who is quietly rerouting every trip to Whole Foods or dinner out.
What's Actually on the Other Side of That Walk
The reason this matters more this year than it once did is that Mercato itself changed last year. The center's central Piazza, the open lawn along Strada Place anchored by its banyan tree, went from roughly 3,000 square feet to something closer to 6,700 after a construction push that broke ground in July 2025 and wrapped that same November, according to Fox4Now's coverage of the reopening. The rebuilt space added a retractable screen for movies on the lawn and a covered stage built for live performances, and the reopening event alone drew several hundred people.
The tenant list around that lawn has moved too. Burntwood Tavern rebranded as Taberna Burntwood. Waxin's, a Swedish-American concept, opened next door. Beeline, a cocktail lounge, launched across the street. Shake Shack has been building out a location nearby. And where Bravo Italian Kitchen used to sit, the Chicago-based DineAmic Hospitality group brought in Violi, a Greek and Italian spot built around wood-fired dishes and courtyard seating with string lights.
None of that required Egrets Walk residents to touch a car. Everyone else in Pelican Marsh has been driving to reach it, and since spring, with one gate down, that drive has gotten a little longer.
Back Inside the Gates
The community's own dining scene has kept pace on a smaller scale. Courtside, the outdoor restaurant and bar at the Pelican Marsh Community Center, operates under Brad Phillips and runs seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m., with live music built into its regular calendar. It sits alongside the golf clubhouse's Grille Room, known for its casual American menu and course views, and the adjoining Grille Terrace, which opens onto a veranda for evening dinners lit by torches rather than overhead lighting.
None of these venues require leaving the community, and for residents outside Egrets Walk who are currently routing every outing through Airport-Pulling or Vanderbilt Beach, that in-gate option carries a little more weight than usual this season. The community center also anchors the rest of daily life here: eight lighted Har-Tru tennis courts, pickleball, three bocce courts, and the Robert von Hagge-designed, Audubon Certified 18-hole course that runs through 133 acres of preserve, including the Cocohatchee Strand.
What This Means If You Live Here Now
None of this is a reason to avoid Mercato or to stay inside the gates until construction wraps. It is a reason to be deliberate about which gate you are using and when. If you live anywhere in Pelican Marsh outside Egrets Walk, build in extra time at Airport-Pulling or Vanderbilt Beach Road until the district posts an update on the US 41 project, since no completion date has been announced yet. If you already live in Egrets Walk, the pedestrian gate to Mercato has not changed at all, and this is arguably the best year yet to use it, given what is now sitting on the other side of that walk.
The broader takeaway is that a single gated address can still contain very different daily routines depending on which of the 26 neighborhoods you call home. That is worth knowing whether you are trying to shave five minutes off a grocery run this month or simply trying to understand why your side of the community feels a little different from your neighbor's this season.
If you are weighing a move within Pelican Marsh, or comparing it to another North Naples gated community, The Grant Group can walk you through exactly how access, amenities, and neighborhood-specific perks like the Egrets Walk pedestrian gate affect day-to-day life here. Request a private consultation to talk through what fits the way you actually want to live.
